Systems and methods for performing integrated financial transactions

ABSTRACT

The invention provides a tool kit for a small business owner to manage a plurality of different financial accounts and services and to perform a number of different financial transactions, wherein each of the transactions may involve multiple sub-transactions which occur among different financial service providers. For example, the system provides an integrated package that integrates financial service providers, such as a payroll service provider, a retirement plan service provider, a healthcare service provider or another type of service provider. The system provides one interface to a subscriber and the subscriber can select from the interface a financial transaction to perform, wherein the selected transaction involves a plurality of subtransactions, occurring between the system, and the involved financial service providers.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 09/437,000, filed on Nov. 9, 1999, currently pending, whichapplication claims priority to U.S. Patent Application Serial No.60/107,731, filed on Nov. 9, 1998. The contents of both of theseapplications are expressly incorporated by reference herein in theirentireties.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0002] The invention relates to systems and methods for providing smallbusiness owners with centralized control over transactions and accounts,and more particularly to systems, methods and software products thatprovide a user with control over a financial transaction that occursbetween different financial service providers, including differentonline financial service providers.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0003] Online banking services promise individuals and small companiessignificant increases in the efficiency of managing business accountsand corporate financial transactions. The online banking industry isexpected to grow significantly over the coming years as more and moresmall business begin to leverage the Internet as a ready mechanism fortransferring funds, purchasing services and goods, and managingcorporate accounts.

[0004] However, although the promise of efficient online financialservices has been repeatedly made over the last several years, theonline banking services that exist today are, in truth, incomplete anddifficult to employ. As such existing online banking services fail toprovide to small business and individuals those key factors that arenecessary for a customer to achieve the efficiencies they require. Theseefficiencies include ease of use, the ability to delegate authority forperforming financial transactions sufficient features to perform thosetransactions necessary for conducting the day to day business of a smallcompany, and a simple and intuitive interface that allows a customer toreadily perform the desired transaction.

[0005] Today there exist many online banking systems that allow aconsumer, small business, or other entity to control, transfer, andmonitor the funds maintained within a banking account. One such systemis described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,220,501 which describes an onlinebanking system that allows a user to control the funds within a checkingaccount from a remote terminal, such as a computer system from a usershome. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,903,881 describes a personal onlinebanking system with integrated online statement and checkbook userinterface that also provides an online banking system that allows a userto control their checking account from a remote location.

[0006] These systems generally work well for individuals interested inremotely monitoring their personal checking account, saving account orother personal bank accounts. Therefore such systems can be quiteeffective at helping an individual manage their personal finances.

[0007] However, the financial accounts of a small business aresignificantly more complicated than the financial accounts of anindividual and can involve transactions for making payroll, 401Ktransactions, health insurance transactions, retirement plans, managinga plurality of corporate credit cards, and other such transactions. Itsfurther common that a small business purchases different financialservice from different financial service providers, either because nosingle service provider is capable of providing all the necessary orbecause there are economic advantages to choosing multiple serviceproviders over a single financial service provider. Therefore it isquiet common for a small business owner to utilize the banking servicesof one financial institution and the payroll services of a differentfinancial service provider. Similarly, the same business may choose aspecial service provider to manage mutual funds and another financialservice provider for securing corporate credit cards. Accordingly asmall business can be left with a plurality of different SP, each ofwhich may optionally provide online access to the company's account.Although the online access may provide the company with convenientaccess to that service provider's account information, the company isstill left with having to manage a plurality of different accounts eachof which has separate online access controls including different userinterfaces, different passwords and different functions. Thus the useris left with having to administer a plurality service systems. This canbe quite a cumbersome and labor intensive process one of which manycompanies find distracting from the main corporate mission. Moreoverhave a plurality of different accounts makes it difficult to delegateauthority for administering a different accounts. For example, a smallcompany may provide the company comptroller with access and authority toadminister funds from the company's checking account, payroll, 401Kplan, and other accounts. However, if the comptroller were to leave thecompany, the remaining corporate officers would be faced with having togo into each online service and change the user account information toremove the user account previously provided to the comptroller therebyinsuring that the departed comptroller can no longer access corporatefinancial information.

[0008] Accordingly, although online financial services exist today thesesystems are generally cumbersome to employ and fail to provide a smallbusiness with the services required for managing the day to dayfinancial transactions of the company. Accordingly there is a need inthe arc for a system that provides a facile to use financial servicethat provides the small business with the tools and service required tomanage the financial structure of the company. There is a further needfor systems that provide a small business with central control over allthe companies accounts or a plurality of the company's accounts therebyallowing he small business owner to grant or restrict access to companyaccounts readily.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0009] The invention provides a tool kit for a small business owner tomanage a plurality of different financial accounts to perform a numberof different financial transactions, wherein each of the transactionsinvolves multiple sub-transactions which occur among different financialservice providers. For example, the system provides an integratedpackage that integrates financial service providers, such as a payrollservice provider, a retirement plan service provider, a healthcareservice provider or another type of service provider. The systemprovides one interface to a subscriber and the subscriber can selectfrom the interface a financial transaction to perform. For example, onetransaction that can be selected by the subscriber is to “Pay Payroll.”Upon selecting this transaction at the user interface, the subscriber'scomputer sends an instruction to a webserver that coordinatestransactions between different providers. The webserver interprets theinstructions to pay payroll as an instruction to transfer money from a“Cash Money Account” (CMA) into a checking account, and from thechecking account, deliver money to the payroll service provider formaking the payroll. The systems and methods described herein perform themiddle-level computing and processing that negotiates the financialtransactions which are to occur through each of the service providers inorder to perform this compound financial transaction. For example, thesystem can transmit to the CMA service provider instructions in a formatunderstood by the CMA service provider and having the informationnecessary for the CMA service provider to transfer money from the CMAaccount into a cash account or savings account that can be employed bythe payroll service provider. For example, the server can provide to theCMA financial service provider an instruction including information suchas a user ID, a PIN number, the amount of money necessary for makingpayroll, an instruction representative of the account into which moneyshould be transferred from the CMA account, and any other suitableinformation that the CMA service provider needs to transfer money fromthe CMA account. Similarly, the system can provide instructions to thepayroll service provider that direct the payroll service provider toprepare payroll checks for each of the employees currently of record atthe payroll service providers data center. Similarly, the server canprovide to the payroll service provider information that isrepresentative of a user ID number, a PIN number, an access controlnumber, or any other type of information that is required by the payrollservice provider to perform the financial transaction requested by thesystems subscriber.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0010] The invention will be appreciated more fully from the followingdescription with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein;

[0011]FIG. 1 depicts a functional block diagram of one system accordingto the invention;

[0012]FIG. 2 depicts in more detail a system according to the invention;

[0013]FIG. 3 depicts one example of an interface for collecting accessinformation from a subscriber;

[0014]FIG. 4 depicts on example of an interface for controlling theaccess settings for various subscribers;

[0015]FIG. 5 depicts a flowchart diagram of example operations providedto a subscriber by a system according to the invention; and

[0016]FIG. 6 depicts in more detail one example of a process accordingto the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CERTAIN ILLUSTRATED EMBODIMENTS

[0017] To provide an overall understanding of the invention, certainillustrative embodiments will now be described, including a system thatallows an entity, such as an individual, a partnership, a smallbusiness, a trust fund, an accountant, or other such entity, to employ auniform user interface to perform integrated financial transactions, andoptionally, to generate records of such integrated financialtransactions, wherein an integrated financial transaction will beunderstood to include, although not be limited to, a financialtransaction that occurs between a plurality of financial serviceproviders. It will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the artthat the systems and methods described herein are provided merely forthe purpose of providing examples of the operation and structure ofsystems and methods of the invention, and that the described embodimentsand practices maybe adapted and modified to provide alternative systemsand methods. Thus, it is to be understood that these other additions andmodifications will not depart from the scope of the invention.

[0018]FIG. 1 depicts one embodiment of a system 10 according to theinvention for carrying out integrated financial transactions.Specifically, FIG. 1 illustrates a system 10 wherein a plurality ofsubscriber systems 12 connect through a network 20 to the server 14. Theserver 14 connects to a proprietary database 16 maintained by the server14 and similarly connects, optionally by direct secure lines, to aplurality of financial service providers 18. The elements of the system10 can include commercially available systems that have been arrangedand modified to act as a system according to the invention, which allowsa subscriber to carry out integrated financial transactions, andoptionally generated records of these integrated transactions. Thesystem 10 of FIG. 1 employs the Internet to allow a subscriber at aremote client, the subscriber systems 12, to access a central server,the depicted central server 14, to login to an account maintained bythat server, and to employ the services provided to that account toperform financial transactions that are commonly required by a smallbusiness.

[0019] For example, the server 14 can present the subscriber with anHTML page that acts as a user interface. This user interface can presentto the subscriber a set of controls for performing financial transactiontypical for a small business. For example, the user interface canprovide to the subscriber a control, typically a button on a web page,that directs the system to perform a payroll operation. For thistransaction, upon activation of the user control, the server 14 cancreate instructions that can be followed by the different financialservice providers that have a role in the payroll financial transaction.For example, the server can generate instructions for one financialservice that provides money market funds, to transfer funds from a moneymarket account into a checking account maintained by a differentfinancial service provider. The server can further create instructionsfor this financial service provider that direct the transfer of funds toan account maintained by a payroll service provider. The server can theninstruct the payroll service provider to deliver paychecks in theappropriate amounts to the small business for distribution to theemployees. Thus by activating one control, the subscriber is able toperform the multiple financial transaction involved in the payrollprocess.

[0020] Turning now the elements that compose the system 10 depicted inFIG. 1, it can be seen the system 10 includes a network based systemthat includes a plurality of client systems 12 that connect through anetwork 20, such as the Internet IP network, or any suitable network toa server system, such as the server system 14 depicted in FIG. 1. Theserver 14 can connect over dedicated channels, over the Internet, or byother means, to the financial services providers 18.

[0021] For the depicted system 10, the client systems 12 can be anysuitable computer system such as a PC workstation, a handheld computingdevice, a wireless communication device, or any other such device,equipped with a network client capable of accessing a network server andinteracting with the server to exchange information with the server. Inone embodiment, the network client is a web client, such as a webbrowser that can include the Netscape web browser, the MicrosoftInternet explorer web browser, the Lynx web browser, or a proprietaryweb browser, or web client that allows the user to exchange data with aweb server, and ftp server, a gopher server, or some other type ofnetwork server. Optionally, the client and the server rely on anunsecured communication path, such as the Internet, for accessingservices on the remote server. To add security to such a communicationpath, the client and the server can employ a security system, such asany of the conventional security systems that have been developed toprovide to the remote user a secured channel for transmitting data overthe Internet. One such system is the Netscape secured socket layer (SSL)security mechanism that provides to a remote user a trusted path betweena conventional web browser program and a web server. Therefore,optionally and preferably, the client systems 12 and the server system14 have built in 128 bit or 40 bit SSL capability and can establish anSSL communication channel between the clients 12 and the server 14.Other security systems can be employed, such as those described in BruceSchneir, Applied Crytpography (Addison-Wesley 1996). Alternatively, thesystems may employ, at least in part, secure communication paths fortransferring information between the server and the client. For purposeof illustration however, the systems described herein, including thesystem 10 depicted in FIG. 1 will be understood to employ a publicchannel, such as an Internet connection through an ISP or any suitableconnection, to connect the subscriber systems 12 and the server 14.

[0022] The server 14 may be supported by a commercially available serverplatform such as a Sun Sparc™ system running a version of the Unixoperating system and running a server capable of connecting with, orexchanging data with, one of the subscriber systems 12. In theembodiment of FIG. 1, the server 14 includes a web server, such as theApache web server or any suitable web server. The web server componentof the server 14 acts to listen for requests from subscriber systems 12,and to in response to such a request, resolves the request to identify afilename, script, dynamically generated data that can be associated withthat request and to return the identified data to the requestingsubscriber system 12. The operation of the web server component ofserver 14 can be understood more fully from Laurie et al., Apache TheDefinitive Guide, O'Reilly Press (1997). The server 14 may also includecomponents that extend its operation to accomplish the integratedfinancial transactions described herein, and the architecture of theserver 14 may vary according to the application. For example, the webserver may have built in extensions, typically referred to as modules,to allow the server 14 to perform operations that facilitate theintegrated financial transactions desired by a subscriber, or the webserver may have access to a directory of executable files, each of whichfiles may be employed for performing the operations, or parts of theoperations, that implement the integrated financial transactions of thesubscriber. Thus it will be understood that the server 14 may act as afinancial transaction server according to the invention that configuresthe work station hardware supporting the server 14 to act as a systemaccording to the invention.

[0023] The server 14 may couple to a database 16 that stores informationrepresentative of a subscriber's account, including information aboutthe different financial service providers that the subscriber employsand information regarding the subscribers accounts, including passwords,user accounts, user privileges and similar information. The depicteddatabase 16 may comprise any suitable database system, including thecommercially available Microsoft Access database, and can be a local ordistributed database system. The design and development of databasesystems suitable for use with the system 10, follow from principlesknown in the art, including those described in McGovern et al., A GuideTo Syhase and SQL Server, Addison-Wesley (1993). The database 12 can besupported by any suitable persistent data memory, such as a hard diskdrive, RAID system, tape drive system, floppy diskette, or any othersuitable system. The system 10 depicted in FIG. 1 includes a databasedevice 16 that is separate from the server station platform 14, however,it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that inother embodiments the database device 16 can be integrated into theserver 14.

[0024] The server 14 may also couple to a plurality of financial serviceproviders 18. In the depicted embodiment, the server 14 connects to thefinancial service providers via a secure line, such as a leasedtelephone line. However, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art that other communication paths can be employed for exchangingdata between the server 14 and the financial service providers 18. Thefinancial service providers can be entities, or institutions that offeror support financial services to an individual or a business. Forexample, a financial service provider can include investment managementfirms that offer cash management accounts which combine check writingand debit card services with money market rates of interest and whichare insured against loss or optionally value decline. Similarly, afinancial service provider may include an electronic Bill PaymentService, such as the CheckFree™ service offered by the CheckFreeCorporation, which provides the bill payment services and electronicbilling services, and may include a Payroll Service, that allows asubscriber to submit its payroll online through its cash managementaccount. Such services can also automatically pay and files taxes fromthis Account. One such service provider is Computer Resources, Inc. Afinancial service provider may be a 401(k) service that provides 401(k)plan management with online enrollment processes including process forsetting up vesting schedules to matching programs, and with options tochoose from a selection of mutual funds including for example Fidelity,Vanguard, and Janus. Further service providers may include providersthat allow a business or individual to accept credit cards as paymentfrom customers and have the proceeds electronically deposited into theappropriate account, including accounts that will immediately beginearning money market rates. Another example of a financial serviceprovider will include a Leasing Service, for example BankVest CapitalCorp., that allows upgrading and adding equipment, handling seasonalfluctuations, addressing unexpected cash flow interruptions and takeadvantaging of unanticipated opportunities. Additionally, a financialservice provider may include a credit service, such as the AdvantaMasterCard® service.

[0025]FIG. 2 provides a functional block diagram of one server 14 forperforming integrated financial transactions and further depicts thedata flow diagram of one example of a subscriber's use of the server 14to perform an integrated financial transaction between the financialservice providers 28 and 30. Specifically, FIG. 2 depicts a data flowdiagram wherein a subscriber 12 employs a user interface 32 to provideuser input to the server 14. As can be seen from FIG. 2, the server 14acts as middleware that coordinates the operations of the financialservice providers 28 and 30 to allow perform a compound or integratedfinancial transaction, that involves the services of both these serviceproviders. Specifically, the server 14 is as a functional block diagramthat includes a web server 40, an access control module 42, aninstruction generator 44 and a report generator 48. The web server 40can be any suitable web server, as discussed above, and in this example,can be understood as the Apache web server listening to port 80 andhaving access to a set of executable files stored in a directoryaccessible to the web server 40 such as the cgi-bin directory.

[0026] One such executable file may be a script that implements anaccess control process, to provide an access controller such as thedepicted access controller 42. The access controller 42 can be a Perl Vscript, a C language program or any other suitable program for providinga process that can determine, in response to information provided by thesubscriber, an access level to grant to the subscriber. For example, theaccess controller 42 may process identifier information such as a username, company name and a password provided by the subscriber through anHTML form presented as the user interface 32. One such form is depictedin FIG. 3. The access controller 42 may compare the identifierinformation provided through the form with information stored in thedatabase 16. From this comparison, the access controller can determinewhether the company name, user name and password indicate that thesubscriber has a valid account on the server 14.

[0027] In optional embodiments, the access controller can determine theclass of access to grant the subscriber. For example, in these optionalembodiments, each account can have a root user that is capable ofcreating sub accounts on the server, each sub account having differentlevels of user privileges. For example, the root user, or admin, canprovide certain users with read only access to the company accountinformation. Further, the root user may restrict a subaccount user tocertain transactions. Thus, the payroll person for the company may beallowed to employ the payroll service, but may be prevented fromaccessing the CMA account for general check writing privileges, or ifcheck writing privileges are provided, the access control process maylimit the amount that a sub user can write checks for, without firstsecuring approval from the root user, or some other subuser. These typesof restricted access are depicted in FIG. 4 which illustrates an AccessSettings page 50, that can be an HTML page presented by the web server40 to the root member of the subscriber account. The depicted HTML pagecan be generated in response to a data stream provided to the web server40 by the access controller 42. As shown in FIG. 4, the Access Settingspage 50 can present the root user with several fields 52, which presentto the root user the level of access and types of rights provided toeach user of the subscriber account. In the depicted example, the rootuser may access for any sub user any field associated with one of theservices employed by the subscriber. Thus, for example the root user canaccess the Payroll Privileges field for the user “J Parker”, to changeor modify the users privileges for this service. Additionally, asdepicted in FIG. 4, the root user can add new users through control 54,wherein subaccounts can be created, with the root user granting certainprivileges to the subuser, and providing for the subuser an account nameand password, that can be submitted by the subuser, and employed by theaccess controller 42 to allow the subuser to login to the system andaccess services. Additionally, the Access Settings page 50 provides a“delete User” field 58, that allows the root user to delete, optionallywith just one or two clicks of a mouse device, a selected one of theuser accounts. In response to indicating an account is to be deleted,the access controller 42 can delete the subusers account information,such as user name and password from the database 16, thereby preventingthe subuser from being able to subsequently access the server 14. In afurther optional embodiment, the access controller may also create a logof each users transactions, and maintain the log in file that can beviewed by the root user.

[0028] The design and development of the access controller follows fromprinciples known in the art of computer programming, including those setforth in Wall et al., Programming Perl, O'Reilly & Associates (1996);and Johnson et al, Linux Application Development, Addison-Wesley (1998).Additionally, in other embodiments, the access controller 42 can beimplemented, at least in part, by employing the operating system torestrict the execution of certain scripts and to restrict access tocertain files by configuring the operating system in a selected manner.Techniques for so configuring the operating system are known in the art,including those techniques set forth in Bach, The Design of the UnixOperating System, Prentice-Hall (1986).

[0029]FIG. 2 further depicts that the server 14 may include aninstruction generator 44 that acts to generate instructions that candirect the operations of the financial service providers, such as thedepicted providers 28 and 32. In one embodiment, the instructiongenerator 44 may be an executable file, or group of executable files,that the web server 14 may access in response to user information anduser commands. For example, upon logging onto the system, the web server40 may present to the subscriber an HTML page that includes a number ofcontrols each of which correspond to an available integrated financialtransaction which the subscriber can activate. The subscriber canactivate the integrated financial transaction by using the control, suchas by clicking a button with a mouse. In response to the control beingactivated, the client browser can return to the web server a locator foran executable file that can perform, at least in part, the integratedfinancial transaction. For example, the instruction generator 44 can bean executable file, such as a Perl V script, a C language program or anyother suitable program for providing a process that can generateinstructions for a financial service provider, such as the depictedfinancial service providers 28 and 30, to achieve an integratedfinancial transaction for the subscriber.

[0030] For example, an continuing with the earlier described example,the subscriber 12 can employ a web browser to access the web server 40component of the server 14 and to receive from the server 14 an HTML,XML, SGML or other suitable format document that can act as the userinterface 32. In one example, the user interface 32 is an HTML page thatemploys the FORM tag/protocol for allowing a subscriber to transmit datato the server 14. For example, the user interface 32 can provide thesubscriber 12 with a form that allows the subscriber 12 to enter acustomer identifier and a password. The subscriber 12 submits the datato the server 14 and, as discussed above, the server 14 processes thedata to determine whether the subscriber 12 is an authorized user andoptionally the level of access to be granted to the subscriber 12.

[0031] Once the server 14 determines that the subscriber 12 can haveaccess to an account maintained by the server 14 and can determine thelevel of access for the subscriber 12, the server 14 can update the userinterface 32, by providing to the subscriber 12 a page, such as an HTMLpage, that presents to the subscriber 12 one or more user controls,typically button controls, that allow the subscriber 12 to direct theserver 14 to perform an integrated financial transaction. For example,one button can provide the subscriber with a control that allows thesubscriber 12 to direct the server 14 to perform a payroll operation forthe company. Upon activating the control, the browser can deliver to theserver 14, information representative of an instruction to make payroll.

[0032] Upon receiving the instruction, the server 14 may call a scriptthat activates the instruction generator 44 which will direct andcoordinate the different financial service providers to perform thetasks that comprise the payroll transaction. In a first act, theinstruction generator 44 can access the database 16 to determine thefinancial service provider employed by the subscriber 12 to maintain theaccount for the company funds that are to be employed for makingpayroll. This information can include the information for accessing thefinancial service provider, such as the financial service provider 28depicted in FIG. 2, which can be a CMA service provider that providesthe subscriber with a money market account for storing company funds.The information retrieved from the database 16 can include theinformation for accessing the financial service provider 28, such as atelephone number for a leased line that may be employed for accessingon-line services offered by the financial service provider 28. Inalternative embodiments, the instruction generator 44 can retrieve fromthe database 16 a URL for accessing on line services though theInternet, or can retrieve an email address for sending instructions byemail to a human operator at the financial service provider 28.

[0033] The instruction generator 44 employs the information storedwithin a database 16 to generate instructions for the financial serviceprovider 28. To this end, the instruction generator 44 can access datastored within the database 16 which is representative of a login datafor accessing an on-line financial service provided by the financialservice provider 28. The login of can include a telephone number, useraccount identifier, password, or any other information necessary for theserver 14 to act as the subscriber's proxy in accessing the onlinefinancial services provided by the financial service provider 28. Oncethe instruction generator 44 has established a communication path withthe financial service provider 28, the instruction generator 44 maycreate a set of instructions representative of a request fortransferring funds from a CMA account maintained by the subscriber atthe financial service provider 28, to transfer these funds to thefinancial service provider 30 which can be a payroll service provider.As depicted in FIG. 2, in response to the instructions provided by theinstruction generator 44, the financial service provider 28 can transferfunds to an account held by the subscriber 12 and maintained by thepayroll service provider 30. In response the payroll service provider 30can deliver a report to CMA provider 28 indicating the receipt of funds.The CMA provider 28 can deliver similar information to the instructiongenerator 44 for allowing the instruction generator 44 to update therecords of the subscriber 12 maintained by the server 14.

[0034] Upon receipt of the report from the CMA service provider 28 thatfunds have been transferred to the service provider 30, the instructiongenerator 44 can, as depicted in FIG. 2, access database 16 forcollecting information necessary for creating a communication path withthe payroll service provider 30. Accordingly, the instruction generator44 may then access an online service provided by the payroll serviceprovider 30 and establish a communication path with the payroll serviceprovider 30. The instruction generator 44, once the communication pathhas been established can than deliver to the payroll service provider 30instructions in a format understandable by the payroll service provider30, that instruct the payroll service provider 30 to create checks forpaying the payroll for the small business. Upon receipt of theinstructions the payroll service provider 30 can create the necessarychecks and deliver the checks as appropriate and may create a record ofthe transaction that can be delivered to the instruction generator 44 toupdate the accounts of the subscriber 12.

[0035] Upon completion of the payroll transaction the report generator48 may process the receipt information provided by the CMA provider 28and the payroll service provider 30 to create a report of thetransaction that may, optionally, be delivered to the subscriber 12.

[0036] Thus, it can be understood that the systems and methods describedherein, including those depicted in FIGS. 1-4 provide an individual orentity with an integrated tool kit for managing a plurality of financialservice products. It will further be understood that these systems allowa subscriber to access the server 14 remotely, such as through theInternet, and that the subscriber 12 may enter a single user name andone ID or password and thereby gain access to the application serverrunning on the platform 14.

[0037]FIG. 5 shows in more detail the types of operations that asubscriber 12 would employ for initiating an account with the server 14and for accessing and operating the application platform provided byserver 14. Specifically FIG. 5 illustrates that a session between thesubscriber 12 and the server 14 begins with a log on wherein the systemdetermines whether or not the subscriber 12 logging on to the system isa new user, or a user that has already registered and therefor has anaccount. If the server 14 determines that a user is a new user, the webserver 40 generates a HTML page that directs the subscriber 12 to enterinformation about the subscriber 12 for enrolling the subscriber intothe system. For example, the web server 40 can generate an HTML pagethat asks for a user name, credit card number, identification of thetype of small business being operated by the subscriber 12, such as acorporate business partnership, sole proprietorship, or trust. Once theserver 14 has received the completed form from the subscriber 12, theserver 14 can open an account for the subscriber. Once the account isopen, the web server 40 may present to the subscriber 12 an HTML pagethat provides the subscriber 12 with a series of optional financialtransactions that the subscriber 12 can activate and direct the server14 to perform. For example, as shown by FIG. 5 the server 14 can presentto the subscriber 12 an HTML page that includes graphical controlelements which allow the subscriber 12 to instruct the applicationserver to implement functions related to the subscriber's core account,a bill paying operation, access controls, download functions, or flashreports. For example, the subscriber 12 may select to view and performtransactions in the core account. The core account is or can be a cashmanagement account which combines check writing and debit card serviceswhile providing true money market rates of return on all balances. Cashfor all business needs such as paying checks or submitting the payrollscan be electronically debited from the core account. The set up,execution, and ongoing management of all financial transactions can bemaintained under the control of the subscriber 12 through accessing andcontrolling the core account through the server 14.

[0038] The bill paying operation can be a bill paying procedureimplemented by the server 14 that lets the subscriber 12 pay vendorselectronically. The system provides ease of use and can track andconsolidate the information regarding bill paying right into an accountstatement. Payments can include remittance information to enable propercrediting of the subscriber 12's accounts with vendors. Additionally,the server 14 can provide an account payroll function. The accountpayroll service will enable the subscriber 12 to set up and submitpayroll information electronically. The subscriber 12 can then performall standard payroll functions electronically from wherever thesubscriber 12 chooses to log in, and at any time the subscriber 12chooses to log in to the application server.

[0039] Additionally, the server 14 allows the subscriber 12 to downloadinformation. Specifically, the server 14 allows the subscriber 12 tolink the account with an accounting software package maintained by thesubscriber 12, for example, at the PC workstation that the subscriber 12is employing for accessing the server 14. The data can be downloaded toa file on a PC which can then be imported to an accounting package, suchas Quicken, or any small business accounting package. Optionally, theserver 14 may provide other financial transaction controls such ascontrols for implementing retirement plans, small business lending,business credit card management, prepaid telephone services, or anyother suitable financial transactions.

[0040] Turning to FIG. 6, one example of the operation of the server 14can be seen. As shown by FIG. 6, a process 70 is illustrated wherein theserver 14 in step 72 receives the instructions from the subscriber 12through the form or through a control activated by the client on the webpage provided to the subscriber 12. In one example, the subscriber 12instructs the server 14 to make payroll. Once the instruction isreceived by the server 14, the server 14 may in step 74 check an accesscontrol. The access control is part of the application server's abilityto provide multiple access to a small business owner's accounts byallowing multiple users to share the account. For example, theapplication server 14 may allow a proprietary user, such as the rootuser, to set up a plurality of accounts, such as an account for theiraccountants, CFO or secretary. The small business owner can providecontrols that set the access the other user is given. For example, theaccountant can be given the control necessary to prepare bills for beingpaid electronically, however, can lack the necessary level of access tobe able to actually kick off electronic payment. Optionally, otheraccess controls can be set up to provide some users with view onlycontrol of monies in certain accounts. Other levels of access includingread only access and control can be provided. Similarly, a new employeein a company being entered initially by a user with ADMINISTRATOR.Privileges can be enrolled in LTD, STD, health care, payroll deductions,etc. with entry of information. READ ONLY access to the information doesnot permit changing any information in the system.

[0041] Returning to FIG. 6 it can be seen that after the access controlis checked, if the access control indicates that the instruction can beproceeded with the process 70 will proceed to the step 78 for preparingan instruction to view the account balance. In this step, the server 14accesses the data stored in the database 16 to get all informationnecessary for generating an instruction to the proprietary system whichimplements the subscriber's 12 core account. For example, theapplication server can reach into the database 16 to get any informationnecessary such as tax payer id information, account number information,user name, passwords, or any other information necessary for preparing adata package that can be transmitted electronically over secure lines tothe financial service provider that is managing the account from whichmonies to be taken for paying payroll. As shown in FIG. 6 the firstinstruction requests information representative of the balancemaintained in the account. The financial service provider receives theinstruction from the application server and returns information,optionally, in a proprietary format, to the application server. In step80, the server 14 translates the information provided by the serviceprovider into an HTML page and presents the HTML page to the subscriber12. The subscriber 12 can view the HTML page to see the subscriber'sbalance at the service provider. Once the balance is displayed as shownby FIG. 6 the subscriber may decide there is not enough information, ormoney, to make payroll and issue an instruction to stop, step 82,wherein the process will end at step 82. Alternatively, if enough moneyis available the subscriber 12 can instruct the process to continue. Asshown in FIG. 6, the subscriber 12 can generate an instruction to paywhich the server 14 will receive at step 88. Responsive to theinstruction to pay, the server 14 will prepare an instruction to movemoney from, for example, a mutual fund account to a checking account topayroll. Accordingly, the server 14 will get the information from thedatabase for preparing the multiple instructions each of which can besent to different financial service providers each of which can havedifferent proprietary formats for receiving data. Accordingly, it can beseen that the server 14 implements, in step 90, a plurality of differentfinancial transactions each of which are used for carrying out onecomposite transaction, such as making payment of payroll. As such, thesystems described therein provide the subscriber 12 with a “point andclick” functionality for making payroll for their company. Once theinstructions to move monies to the proper account and kick off payrollare made, the server 14 can then create and store a record of thetransaction which can be maintained in the database 16 depicted in FIG.1.

[0042] The server 14 described herein can be any suitable applicationprogram written in any suitable computer language such as C or C++, orany other suitable computer language. The development of suchapplication programs is within the skill of one of ordinary skill in theart. Moreover, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in theart that, although FIGS. 1 and 2 graphically depict the server 14 andits components as functional block elements, it will be apparent to oneof ordinary skill in the art that these elements can be realized ascomputer programs or portions of computer programs that are capable ofrunning on a data processor platform to thereby configure the dataprocessor as a system according to the invention. Moreover, althoughFIGS. 1 and 2 depict the server 14 as an integrated unit, it will beapparent to those or ordinary skill in the art that this is only oneembodiment, and that the invention can be embodied as a series ofdistributed computer program, with certain functionality on thedistributed across multiple servers and with varying divisions offunctionality between the server side and the client side. Additionally,it will be understood that various modifications and extensions of thesystems and methods described herein can include server processes thatemploy use account information to automatically, or at least in partautomatically, subscribe the user to other financial services, or tosign the subscriber up with other financial service providers. Thus inone such modified system, the server can provide the subscriber with aform that allows the subscriber to set criteria for when the subscriberwould be willing to change service providers. Thus the subscriber canindicate, for example, that the subscriber would be willing to changecredit card providers if a new credit card provider could be identifiedthat would provide a credit program meeting certain desired or specifiedcriteria. In this extended system, if such a program is offered by aprovider, the server 14 could employ subscriber information, such asnames, addresses, tax id and other such information to the new provider,and could transfer account balances, and request new credit cards, allwithout, or with mininial, subscriber intervention. Thus, it will beunderstood that the above described systems and processes are merelyembodiments of the invention and that other embodiments can be madewithout departing from the scope hereof.

1. A method, comprising: associating a subscriber with an identifier andaccount data representative of account information for accountsmaintained by the subscriber at a plurality of different financialservice providers, providing the subscriber with a control to initiate afinancial transaction to combine a first service provided by a firstfinancial service provider with a second different service provided by asecond different financial service provider to create a third servicedifferent from the first service and the second service, generating afirst set of instructions for the first financial service provider toperform the first service, the first set of instructions includinginstructions for employing the account data to access the accountsmaintained by the subscriber at the first financial service provider,generating a second set of instructions for the second differentfinancial service provider to perform the second different service, thesecond set of instructions including instructions for employing theaccount data to access the accounts maintained by the subscriber at thesecond different financial service provider, and providing the first andsecond sets of instructions to the first and second financial serviceproviders, where execution of at least one of the first set and thesecond set of instructions coordinates respective operation of therespective first and second financial service providers to achieve thethird service different from the first service and the second service.2. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifier includes a companyidentifier.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the identifier includes apersonal identifier.
 4. The method of claim 2, wherein the identifierincludes a password.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:providing a common user interface; and wherein providing the identifiercomprises using the common user interface.
 6. The method of claim 1,further comprising: providing a user interface capable of allowing thesubscriber to access a plurality of the financial services employed bythe subscriber and provided by different financial service providers. 7.The method of claim 1, further comprising: providing a download functionfor allowing the subscriber to communicate the account data in aselected file format to a client program capable of processing the datain the selected format.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:allowing the subscriber to create subaccounts.
 9. The method of claim 8,further comprising: allowing the subscriber to assign privileges to eachof the subaccounts to control access to available financial services.10. The method of claim 8, further comprising: allowing the subscriberto delete subaccounts, thereby preventing a sub-user from accessingavailable financial services.
 11. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: collecting user information from the subscriber, andemploying the user information for registering the subscriber with atleast one financial service provider different from the first and secondfinancial service providers.
 12. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: allowing a financial service provider to unregister thesubscriber from financial service providers.
 13. The method of claim 1,comprising: allowing the subscriber to identify criteria for switchingbetween financial service providers, and switching the subscriberaccounts from one financial service provider to another financialservice provider when the criteria is met.
 14. The method of claim 1,wherein the financial service providers are selected from at least oneof a payroll provider, lending provider, bill paying provider, healthinsurance provider, retirement plan provider, 401K plan provider, bankaccount provider, business merchant card processing provider, and creditprovider.
 15. The method of claim 1, further comprising: providing aflash report including a first data item and a second data item whereinthe first data item is employed by the first financial service providerand the second data item is employed by the second financial serviceprovider different from the first financial service provider.
 16. Themethod of claim 15, further comprising: providing the flash report as afunction of the access level.
 17. The method of claim 1, comprising:providing one or more privileges for the identifier, each of the one ormore privileges having a corresponding access level representative ofservices available to be accessed.
 18. The method of claim 1, whereinthe integrated financial transaction comprises a transaction selectedfrom at least one of making a payroll for a business, securing healthinsurance for a business, forming a 401K plan for a business, taking aloan for a business, and forming a lease for office space for abusiness.
 19. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a second set ofinstructions comprises: generating the second set of instructionssubsequent to generating the first set of instructions.
 20. The methodof claim 1, wherein execution of the second set of instructions is inresponse to execution of the first set of instructions.